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from NPR.

Okay, confession time.

I love thunderstorms, the sounds, the flashes of light, the ground rumbling.

I love all of this when I'm indoors. But when I'm outside in the

rain and seeing lightning coming my way, I, a full-grown adult, become terrified

and run into the nearest building.

I've been that way ever since I can remember.

An Aurelian Gua, a physicist at E. Cole Polytechnic near Paris,

says he was the same as a kid.

I think like many kids I was at the same time scared and

fascinated by the lightning and thunder by the big flash of light that you see and waiting for the sound to know if it's far or if it's close.

My dog was always frightened by the lightning and shaking like this.

And lightning doesn't just scare dogs and kids.

It has real world consequences outside of raising our heartbeats.

Storms delay flights, lightning strike buildings, and wind farms. People get struck by lightning every year.

Between 2006 and 2021, 444 people in the United States died from a lightning strike.

Arelian and his multinational team are on a mission to draw lightning away from planes, people, and

other precious objects.

...